* Local Lake County media was all atwitter this week at a seemingly stunning revelation by their county clerk…
Lake County Clerk Willard Helander expressed concerns Oct. 17 with the high volume of irregularities in voter registration applications recently received by her office.
These improprieties could impact the results of local elections within the county, Helander said.
“The integrity of an election could well be compromised,” Helander said. “In an election cycle where a Lake County candidate would win or lose by one or two votes, this is really scary.”
Helander said several days ago that she had notified area police, the attorney general and the feds. The attorney general, however, wasn’t notified until late yesterday afternoon.
* More…
Pointing to more than 1,000 “compromised” registration forms received by her office, County Clerk Willard Helander called Friday for voter registration reform to protect the integrity of elections.
Meanwhile, the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office and the Lake County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the initiation of a joint investigation into the registration forms, which include non-existent addresses, dead people and even pets.
* Pets? What the heck is that about?
The only “agent of change” Princess ever supported was the person who freshened the water in her fishbowl.
So election officials in Chicago’s northern suburbs want to know why voter registration material was sent to the dead goldfish. […]
Beth Nudelman, who owned the fish, said Princess may have landed on a mailing list because the family once filled in the pet’s name when they got a second phone line for a computer.
“There was no fraud involved,” said Nudelman, a Democrat who supports Barack Obama. “This person is a dead fish.”
The paperwork sent to a “Princess Nudelman” likely came from the “Women’s Voices, Women Vote” project, which sent nearly 1 million mailings to Illinois households in August using a list that mistakenly included some pets, said Sarah Johnson, a spokeswoman for the not-for-profit group that encourages single women to vote.
* An August 21st story in the Monmouth Review Atlas about the Women’s Voices, Women Vote statewide mailer includes this bit of info…
The generic form already has names printed on them
Apparently, some people are just sending the completed forms into the county clerk’s office, maybe as a joke, or maybe because they don’t read them closely, or whatever.
* I’d heard of that Women’s Voices, Women Vote outfit before. The group backed was chock full of Hillary Clinton supporters in the primaries and found itself in hot water all over the place. This is from the Virginia State Police…
Virginia State Police special agents have tracked down and identified the source of the mass mailing of voter registration applications to Virginia households across the Commonwealth.
The investigation was initiated Thursday (Feb. 7, 2008) after State Police was contacted by the State Board of Elections. On Wednesday and Thursday of this week, Virginia citizens began receiving recorded phone messages notifying them that a voter registration packet would be arriving in the mail. The individuals were then advised to complete, sign and mail in the application. Concerned because the messages did not specify who or where the packets were coming from, many of the citizens contacted their local registrar to find out if it was legitimate.
* In North Carolina, the group’s robocalls were initially thought to be a form of voter suppression because the calls targeted African-Americans with incorrect information…
“The calls were scheduled to coincide with the arrival of the voter registration applications,” the group said in a statement. “We regret any confusion that has arised as a consequence of this timing.” Podesta weighed in as well, calling the North Carolina situation “a mistake of judgment and execution, and not an attempt to disenfranchise voters.”
* More problems…
* In Arizona last November, election officials were “inundated with complaints” after Women’s Voices sent a mailing erroneously claiming that recipients were “required” to mail back an enclosed voter registration form. Many who received the mailing were already registered; the mailing also gave the wrong registration date. Secretary of State Jan Brewer denounced the group’s tactics as “misleading and deceptive.”
* A similar mailing in Colorado that month “[drew] fire and caused confusion,” according to a state press release.
* In Wisconsin, state officials singled out Women’s Voices for misleading and possibly disenfranchising voters, stating in a press release [PDF]: “One group in particular — Women’s Voices. Women Vote, of Washington, D.C. — apparently ignored or disregarded state deadlines in seeking to register voters,” sending in registrations past the January 30 deadline and causing “hundreds of Wisconsin voters who think they registered in advance” to actually not be.
* Michigan officials ended up “fielding tons of calls from confused voters” after Women’s Voices did a February mailing to “380,000 unmarried women” — including numerous deceased voters and even more that were already registered. Sarah Johnson of Women’s Voices “seemed confused by the confusion,” the Lansing State Journal reported.
* A 1.5 million-piece Women’s Voices mailing in Florida falsely stated: “To comply with state voting requirements, please return the enclosed application.” Pasco County’s elections supervisor called it “disingenuous”; another said it created “a lot of unnecessary panic on behalf of the voters,” reported local newspapers. Sarah Johnson of Women’s Voice said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
* By March, Women’s Voices was backing off the erroneous “registration is required” language, but there were still problems. For example, a mailing in Arkansas allowed that “registering to vote is voluntary,” but a clerk in Washington County reported that “the majority [of forms] sent back to the county come from registered voters, causing needless labor for office employees.”
What a mess.
But it looks, once again, like this group may be incompetent or at least careless and not intentionally evil. Helander might want to rein in the rhetoric a bit.
Goldfish don’t vote. Not even dead ones.